


Along for the Ride

by funkmetalalchemist



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Inappropriate Stapler Handling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:33:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4755071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funkmetalalchemist/pseuds/funkmetalalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean accidentally hits Eren in the face with a stapler. To make up for it, Jean offers him a ride home. And another. And another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Jean gave Eren a ride home, it was obligatory.

Jean had kind of, sort of, almost – really, it was an accident! – given Eren a black eye. How was he supposed to know that the Jaeger kid had virtually no hand-eye coordination? Wasn’t he supposed to be, like, an athlete or something? He had the build for it. In fact, yeah, Jean was certain Eren was an athlete, because Eren had been handing flyers for laser tag out to their 19th Century Lit class the other day. Laser tag was a sport, right? Anyway, Eren, by all accounts, should have been able to catch that heavy, classic Swingline stapler. So, maybe Jean shouldn’t have thrown it overhand. And maybe he should have aimed for Eren’s chest instead of his face. But really, Jean was trying to be helpful. When you thought about it, wasn’t it mostly Eren’s fault, anyway? If he lacked coordination, he should at least have the courtesy of being slightly less fit. Jean? Jean was respectably lanky and had a very standard amount of coordination. He knew his limits. But Eren, muscle-bound and (apparently) clumsy as shit, had no excuses.

Jean had never felt guiltier.

The second that the stapler left Jean’s hands, Jean saw the look on Eren’s face. Eren’s mouth opened as if to speak, and his eyes went wide for a fraction of a second before they shut tight and the fingers of Eren’s raised hands splayed out as if the action would give his face better coverage. It did not. From what Jean could see (something his memory replayed in slow-motion horror), the dull beige weight of the stapler hit Eren somewhere between his right eyebrow and the bridge of his nose. The other patrons of the computer lab turned to look only when the stapler thudded loudly against the floor. Eren let out a single, quiet, extended groan and slowly pushed his hands into his face. Jean was at his side in a second, afraid to lay a hand on him, because who knows what further damage Jean could do to this poor, fragile, tragically uncoordinated boy.

They’d wandered around campus for about fifteen minutes – Jean because he felt sorry, Eren because he was in immense pain – looking for somewhere they might find an ice pack. Despite Jean’s reassurances, Eren was afraid that the campus health center would charge him money that he didn’t have for health care he didn’t need, so they settled for ice from a soda machine they’d found, wrapping them in about three feet of paper towels from a bathroom. By the time they’d created the ice pack, Eren’s eye was starting to turn red to purple against his tan skin.

“What time is it?” Eren asked, his voice muffled by the makeshift ice pack, which actually covered most of his face. They probably could have used less paper towel. Less ice, too. _Next time_ , Jean thought, before quickly wondering what the hell he was thinking by “ _next time_.”

Jean checked his phone. “Quarter past three.”

Eren’s eyes wandered in thought for a second until he let out another groan.

“What?” Jean asked.

“I missed my bus. There won’t be another one for an hour.” Eren cursed under his breath and tried to furrow his eyebrows before wincing in pain.

Now, Jean could do what he would do on any other day: Offer Eren a “That sucks, man! Oh well! See you Thursday!” and be on his way. He wasn’t an unkind person, in his humble opinion, but he’d always thought that if you give a mouse a ride home in your dad’s nice car, they’re going to want a ride every day. So, he rarely offered rides to anyone unless he felt he owed them.

Eren gingerly removed the ice pack from his face, wincing as he hissed out and stared at the rapidly-melting ice pack before reapplying it.

Jean owed him.

So, they walked across campus to the parking lot, where Jean asked Eren to check for cars coming before he backed out of his space, to which Eren replied, “My blind spot is bigger than yours, asshole,” and Jean promptly shut up.

The ride was mostly silent. Before they had even left the parking lot, an overplayed song came on the radio and upon the opening notes, Eren’s hand darted to the dashboard and fumbled over dials and knobs before Jean gently nudged his hand away (praying all the while he wouldn’t break Eren’s fingers or anything like that) and simply shut the radio off.

The only words they spoke the whole time where occasional _left-at-the-next-stoplights_ and _on-your-rights_. Jean could not bring himself to mention it when the water from the quickly melting ice pack started flowing down Eren’s fingers, dripping from his wrist all over the upholstery. He kept his eyes dutifullyon the road. When they finally came to a stop in front of Eren’s apartment complex, Eren grabbed his backpack from the back seat, gracefully keeping the ice pack against his eye with his one free hand, and pushed open the door, clambering up and out. As he was about to leave, Eren paused, leaned over and blinked his uninjured eye down at Jean, sitting rigidly in the driver’s seat, blinker still ticking away.

“Thanks,” Eren said. His ice pack let a single drop of water fall onto the seat. Jean winced. “For the ride,” Eren clarified as an afterthought.

“Yeah, uh, no problem,” Jean replied quietly, fiddling with the temperature controls. Jean inhaled and looked up at Eren just as Eren was removing the ice pack from his face.

The right side of Eren’s face, from chin to eyebrow was glistening, dripping with the wet of the paper towels, and his right eye had bloomed a shade of dark violet that would have been beautiful were it on a painting and not the swollen eye of Jean’s classmate.

Eren sighed at the paper towel in his hand and turned around, putting his hand on the door to shut it.

“Eren,” Jean blurted.

Eren stopped and craned his neck around to look at Jean.

“I’m sorry. About your eye.”

Eren nodded and shut the car’s door. Jean watched Eren walk towards his ground floor apartment and fish the keys out of his pocket. After Eren stuck his keys into the lock, he turned his head to look back at Jean, car still idling. He raised his hand, still gripping his ice pack and gave one small wave before turning and entering his house.

Jean sighed and let his head fall against his steering wheel.


	2. Chapter 2

The second time that Jean offered Eren a ride home, it was a peace offering.

Since the stapler incident just a few weeks prior, Eren had been shockingly cold to Jean. Jean’s mind was consumed with it for days. He’d helped Eren make an (admittedly pretty shitty) ice pack. He’d given Eren a ride home. Jean was certain that more than made up for a little bruise.

The bruise wasn’t that little, though. The next day, when Jean showed up to class, Eren, who usually showed up about three words into the prof’s opening spiel, was already sitting in his usual seat, one seat over and behind where Jean usually sit. The fact that Eren was early was not the most noticeable thing about him today, though. Eren’s black eye, which had been a soft purple when Jean had left him the day before, was now a violent dark purple, clouding the whole of his upper eyelid and dragging along down this inside of his eye, where its corner met the bridge of his nose. Jean’s first thought was _shit, how unlucky_. His second thought was, _shit, I’m an asshole._

“Hey Eren,” Jean offered with a smile he hoped came off as apologetic.

Eren looked up at him from the notes he had been staring down at on his desk. Eren nodded once, without a word, and looked back down at his book.

Usually Eren would insult Jean or something, at least. Make a stab at his shitty haircut (it wasn’t shitty, it was a good haircut), or ask Jean how badly he’d failed their last test. Occasionally they had casual how-was-your-weekend type banter on their friendlier days, but for the most part they just busted each others’ chops. It wasn’t hostile or anything – they had, after all, been co-mingling among the same relatively small group of friends for the last three years since their freshman year in the dorm, so they did know each other. When they were drunk enough, they were actually pretty good friends. But this? A single, silent, hostile, unforgiving nod? This was unfamiliar territory.

Jean sat and, for a few minutes, tried to think of something to say to make Eren angry or make him laugh or make him acknowledge Jean at the very least, but by the time the professor finally came in, Jean still didn’t know what to say. He sat through an hour and a half of the professor explaining some minute detail of the reading Jean had forgotten to do the night before, all the while trying to think of what he could say to Eren and why Eren hadn't said anything to him.

Eren's reason was clearly the fact that Jean had nearly broken his nose. Eren had beautiful dark skin and green eyes so bright you could see them from a mile off, so the purpling and the swollenness was probably not doing a whole lot for Eren’s self-esteem. Jean personally didn’t see the need for Eren to worry- he was pulling off the black eye as well as a movie star in heavy post-action-scene makeup – but if it was Jean’s fault that Eren was feeling horrible about his appearance, and if Eren was resenting Jean for it, Jean felt the needs to make amends. As the students around him began closing their books and unzipping backpacks, Jean realized with a sigh what he had to do.

“Hey, Eren.”

Eren, who was already almost out the door, stopped and turned around, nearly knocking into a student who seemed to be in a particular rush. He stepped out of the aisle and leaned against a desk to allow traffic through while he stared at Jean expectantly. When Jean said nothing, Eren finally exhaled loudly.

“What, Jean?”

Yeah, Eren was definitely pissed off with him.

“Let me give you a ride home today. I’m still really sorry about your eye- I want to make it up to you.” Jean tried for a smile.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Eren rebuffed without a second’s pause.

Jean blinked. Eren began to turn back around.

“Wait, Eren, please. Don’t, uh.” Jean tried to think of another way to phrase it but came up empty. “Don’t be mad at me.”

Eren stared, stony-faced at Jean for a full five seconds of silence as the last student filtered out of the classroom.

“Fine,” Eren finally agreed, slinging his backpack back over his shoulder and turning back towards the door. “But I get to choose the music this time.”

Jean scrambled over desks to catch up to him.

They walked across the campus, feet falling in step. They were about halfway to the overcrowded parking lot when Jean tried to break their silence.

“I really am sorry about your eye, y’know.”

“Please don’t,” Eren replied, quickening his gait ever-so slightly. “It’s fine. Just… Let’s get to your car.”

Jean respectfully did not open his mouth again as they continued walking, but the inside of his head some kind of fucked-up fire-shitstorm. He could not make sense of it. Eren was mad at Jean for making a mistake, but didn’t want him to apologize for it? So what was Jean supposed to do? Give himself a black eye? Jean briefly considered whether or not it would be possible to somehow get Eren to accidentally give Jean a black eye on his steering wheel, or, ooh, the gear shift might work.

“It’s locked,” Eren said, quietly enough that Jean almost didn’t hear him.

“Oh, shit, sorry, let me get that for you,” Jean gave a little half-jog for the last few steps to Eren’s door, unlocking it with the key rather than the button unlock that sat right under the key on his keychain.

“O-kay,” Eren muttered once Jean finally stepped out of the way and grandly gestured toward the open door. Jean walked back as Eren settled and quickly clambered into his own seat.

“Buckled up?” Jean asked? _Couldn’t risk another black eye_.

“Uh, yeah, hold on,” Eren said, grasping blindly behind his shoulder for the strap.

“I can-“

“I’ve got it, Jean. It’s fine. Start the car.”

Okay, so Operation Get Back On Eren’s Good Side appeared to be going in the wrong direction. Jean was starting to wonder if maybe Eren was just having a bad day. Maybe it had nothing to do with Jean. In which case, goddamn it, he was going, like, a mile out of his way to drop off Eren at his apartment complex for no real reason.

“Sorry,” Jean murmured as he turned the key.

Eren let out a little huff and started fiddling with the radio. After skipping through every radio station, he huffed a considerably larger huff.

“Do you have an aux cord?”

“Ah, no. Need to get a new radio, sorry. I have some CD’s, in the-“ Jean pointed up at the CD holder attached to the passenger seat's visor. Eren pulled the elastic pieces to the side and pulled the CD holder into his lap. He pulled them out one at a time, shaking his head.

“None of these have track names on them. ‘CD 3’ – what’s on that?” Eren asked.

“I, uh... 3? I made that, like, two years ago. I don’t remember.” Jean began tapping his fingers nervously at the steering wheel. He did know what was on them, but didn’t want Eren to know that.

Eren raised his eyebrows and snorted. He very unceremoniously shoved the CD into the slot.

Jean prayed for a scratched disc error.

A second of silence, then, a bass line. Vocals. Then, Eren laughing.

“The Black Eyed Peas? I thought you said you made this two years ago!”

“I did! I just- It was a throwback kind of thing…”

“Oh my God,” Eren laughed. He (thankfully) pressed next.

More laughter.

“Okay, _Poker Face_ was a hit! Why are you laughing?”

Rather than answer, Eren laughed harder. A minute into the song, his breathing evened out and the smile was starting to fade from Eren’s face, and so Eren clicked next.

No laughter. Just piano and vocals, isolated in the enclosed space of Jean’s car.

“What, you’re not going to laugh this time?” Jean asked nervously. He had grown a lot in the last two years, but he wasn’t sure he could handle even more insult being handed to his former self’s terrible taste in music.

Eren shook his head. Suddenly, Eren was singing along quietly.

“’Cause you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable. And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table.” Eren smiled over at Jean. Jean’s lip quirked upward, and he began singing along too, in his quiet, scratchy, out-of-tune singing voice.

“And no one can find the rewind button, girl. So cradle your head in your hands.”

Eren inhaled deeply and shouted the chorus with Jean.

“And breathe!” Eren couldn’t make it past the first one, and burst out into laughter. Jean joined him and looked over at those giant green eyes. They were big enough that they ought to look strange, but they didn’t, not framed with that face.

“Light!” Eren shouted, suddenly serious and bracing himself against the dashboard and his door.

Jean looked up. He was rapidly approaching a red light. In the space of a second, he checked his rearview mirror for cars behind him, slammed on the brake, and threw his right arm out over Eren’s stomach to stop him from flying forward. They screeched to a halt a few feet on the far end of the white stopping line, and their heads swung back, hitting their headrests with soft thumps. They both breathed heavily as Anna Nalick continued crooning while her strings section joined in. A car flew by in front of them, letting out a high-pitched honk.

Eren pushed Jean’s hand off of his stomach and turned off the music with a click.

Jean flexed the fingers of his right hand and put them back on the steering wheel.

“Sorry,” Jean whispered. It was suddenly far too quiet to use a normal speaking voice.

“Would you stop apologizing?”

Jean turned back to look at Eren again. Eren looked annoyed, frustrated, overwhelmed, and the blush over his face was overshadowed only by the shiner on his eye.

“Is it wrong for me to be sorry for almost killing us just now?” Jean scoffed.

“It was just a red light! We would have been fine!”

“Well, that car-“

“Wouldn’t have hit us! It was a stupid mistake but you don’t have to keep apologizing for it! Jesus!” Eren brought up his hands to rub at his face.

“…Is this about the st-“

“Of course it’s about the stapler, Jean!” Eren shouted. “I don’t want your pity, alright! I’m not some fragile little kid. I don’t need your help! Stop babying me!”

Silence.

“The light is green,” Eren finished angrily.

Jean slowly, carefully pressed down on the accelerator.

“I was trying to be polite,” Jean finally said as they turned down Eren’s street. “I really do feel bad.”

“Well, don’t. Alright? It was just a stupid mistake. You’re fine.” Eren still sounded annoyed, but significantly less angry.

“So… we’re okay then?”

“We’d be better if you’d stop trying to get back on my good side or whatever. You were already on my good side. Stop trying to make things better when they’re already fine.”

“Sorry,” Jean said. Then, after catching the look in Eren’s eye, corrected himself. “I mean, yeah, okay. Alright. We’re good.”

“Alright?”

“Alright.”

Jean put on his blinker and pulled into the building’s parking lot. He slowed to a stop.

“Thanks for the ride, asshole,” Eren said as he climbed out.

The second the door closed behind Eren, Jean took the world’s deepest breath, exhaled slowly as he could, turned the radio back on, pressed back to start the track over, and started singing along so loud his lungs strained with the pressure.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! im gonna keep updating as frequently as i can :) it's all written (almost 10k words total!) - i just need to proofread so i don't make more of a fool of myself than i absolutely need to


	3. Chapter 3

The third time that Jean offered Eren a ride home, it was for Eren’s safety.

Jean had never really been the type to go out on Friday nights. His friend group would occasionally get together for a few rounds of drunk Mario Kart, but parties had never been his thing. So, when he got off work Friday night, he thought he would drive downtown and window shop. Maybe even get a smoothie, if he was really feeling it. Who knew? Anything could happen.

Jean had not driven even a mile before he saw a familiar mess of brown curls stumbling along the side of the road. Jean put on his blinker and pulled over alongside the faltering figure, rolling down his window.

“Eren? What the hell, man? It’s like 9:00.”

Eren, rocking slightly on his heels, narrowed his eyes and stared in at Jean.

“Jean?” Eren asked, bewildered.

“Yeah, it’s Jean! Jesus, where are you going? Get in.”

“I’m just… right down the-the road,” Eren stammered, pointing uphill. “S’fine.”

“Eren, it’s dark out and it’s, like, 40 degrees and you’re wearing a t-shirt. Get in.” Jean swiftly unbuckled himself and leaned over to open his passenger’s side door. Eren tilted his head backward and sighed loudly before climbing down into the car very ungracefully.

“Here,” Jean said, reaching around for something in the backseat. He pulled back a stretch of dark red fabric. “Put this blanket on. I’ll turn the heat up.”

“I’m already hot,” Eren replied. Then, after a second, he chuckled. “I’m hot.”

“Sure you are, buddy,” Jean replied, forcibly shoving the blanket onto Eren’s lap. He turned the heat onto high and rubbed his hands together, already cold from the drift coming in through Eren’s still-open window. He rolled it back up as Eren begrudgingly straightened the blanket out over himself. “What were you doing walking alone anyway? It’s dangerous. We’re two, three miles from your apartment building.”

“I had to leave the party,” Eren said, slumping down in his seat.

“Buckle up,” Jean instructed. Eren obliged with an annoyed groan. “What do you mean, you had to leave the party. You got kicked out?”

“No, not this time,” Eren replied slowly, quietly. Jean wondered what had happened the previous time. “I was going to… Mmm… I wasn’t having a good time. I didn’t know anyone. It was one of Mikasa’s friends. And then this guy, he-he started talking to me, and I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to talk to him, so I left.”

“You drank a lot,” Jean observed.

“Thought I would feel better.”

“Didn’t work?” Jean asked.

“Nope.”

“Hm.”

They were quiet then, the only sound the low hum of the AC blasting warm air through the car. Suddenly, Eren was sticking an arm out from the red pool of the blanket. He pressed buttons at random until music came on. It was a very formulaic pop song, the kind that would get a hundred plays on a radio station in a day.

“You want me to change the CD?” Jean asked gently.

“I just wanted some noise. It’s fine.”

Eren was, apparently, a very honest drunk.

After a while, Jean pulled into a parking lot.

“Where are we?” Eren asked, voice dull.

“Downtown. There’s a McDonald’s, a Taco Bell, a Burger King and a Panda Express on this side of the road, and a Starbucks and an Arby’s on the other side of the road. Pick one.”

“I didn’t… don’t have money,” Eren admitted, flushing.

“I’ve got it, it’s fine,” Jean put the car in park and turned off the ignition, unbuckling his seatbelt and kindly waiting for Eren to unbuckle himself.

“I don’t want you to pay for me.”

“Well, I want to pay for you.”

A pause.

“Burger King,” Eren muttered.

“They make good fries.”

“Fries… and a milkshake.”

“Fries and a milkshake it is.”

They walked slowly, shoulder-to-shoulder into the restaurant, which glowed with orange and blue light.

-

“I’m paying you back tomorrow, you know,” Eren said with a mouth full of fries.

Jean smiled at him from across the table. “Okay, yeah.”

“You don’t believe me.”

Jean shrugged and sipped at his smoothie.

“I’m going to. I will,” Eren insisted. Then, “God, this is so good. I needed this. What a shitty day. Shitty party.”

“So you were going to walk home three miles because you didn’t know anyone at the party?”

“Mm,” Eren hummed thoughtfully, chewing and swallowing his bite, “It’s not that I didn’t know anyone. Mikasa was there, Annie and Bert were there. Ymir, too, I think. I just- you know? It wasn’t for me.”

Jean wasn’t sure if he understood, but he nodded and hummed.

“Can I have a fry?” Jean asked.

Eren nodded and pushed the box between them.

Jean ate a fry, then a few more. And quietly, but not uncomfortably so, they were done eating, fries gone and straws noisily straining for last drops, and they just sat there. They would make eye contact from time to time and Jean would give a carefully restrained, closed-mouth smile, and Eren would smile fully, showing top and bottom teeth.

His bruise was almost completely gone now. If you were not as familiar with the shape and color of Eren’s face as intimately as Jean was by this point, you probably wouldn’t have noticed the small purple shading falling under Eren’s eyebrow. It wasn’t swollen at all, anymore, though. His face had fallen back into its familiar contours, his big, too-big eyes the center, the focus of his face, his broad jaw shaped by his smile, reddened ears peeking out from under his enormous, tousled hair. Jean felt worse now about having given Eren a black eye, now that he could appreciate Eren’s face for what it was – beautiful. Most people would describe Eren’s looks as playful, sprite-like, impish, which Jean could understand. But here, now, this smile was too honest, too whole to be perceived as anything but beautiful.

Eventually, after making their smiling eye contact yet another time, Jean finally let out a sigh and looked at the clock, pretending as though he didn’t know what time it was, pretending he hadn’t been acutely aware of just how much time he and Eren had just spent in warm, comfortable silence. It had been nice. Surprisingly nice. But Jean didn’t want to push it. Eren was still a little drunk, and probably just wanted to get home and sleep.

“Let’s get you home, okay?” Jean edged out of his seat, standing up slowly. Eren stood up too quickly, then grabbed at his head and braced his hand against the table for balance.

“Headrush,” Eren explained.

“Yeah, I figured.” Jean hooked his hand around Eren’s arm and helped him up. If Eren minded that Jean didn’t let that arm go until they reached the car, he didn’t say anything.

When Jean finally pulled into Eren’s apartment complex, he looked over to find Eren had fallen fast asleep, puffing out gentle breaths from between pinkish lips. Jean parked the car and waltzed around to the passenger’s side door.

He tried to wake Eren, shaking his shoulder, and, in a moment of bravery, cupping Eren’s cheek in his hand. He used that same hand to slap Eren (gently, of course) once. Twice. When nothing worked, he ended up just pulling Eren carefully out of the passenger’s seat. He stirred slightly as Jean pulled him up by the armpits, trying and failing to leave a respectable distance between the two of them, and Eren moaned sleepily against Jean’s shoulder. Jean tried (and again, failed) to restrain a smile.

Jean thought through how he wanted to do this for a few moments. Eren, blanket wrapped now around his shoulders, was not awake enough to support himself on his feet, so side-by-side wouldn’t work. Heaving a sigh and remembering to lift with his legs, Jean heaved Eren up, hooking his hands and forearms under Eren’s ass, holding him tight against his chest. Eren, sleepy but apparently still conscious of what was happening to him, nuzzled his head further into Jean’s neck and breathed deeply. His hands hooked tight around Jean’s neck, and his legs around Jean’s middle. Jean leaned back against the car door to close it and, letting the car take care of most of their combined weight for a moment, Jean propped Eren up with his knee so he could fish a hand into Eren’s back pocket to get his keys. Jean took a few precursory breaths, then, key in hand, hand on Eren’s butt, set off to travel the impossible 10 yards to Eren’s first-floor front door, all the while thanking every god he could think of that Eren's apartment was on the first floor.

Eren was heavy. He hadn’t looked light by any stretch of the imagination, really. He could feel the well-formed arms stretched around his neck. He could also feel Eren’s generously muscled ass with his hands, but he was busy pretending that wasn’t happening, so, yeah, the arms. Eren had nice arms. But Jesus, did muscles make for a heavy body. And it wasn’t helping that Jean was simultaneously restraining giggles at the warm breaths steadily tickling at his neck.

Jean finally reached Eren’s door. He propped Eren up between his own torso and the wall adjacent to Eren’s door, and freed the hand holding the keys, and took only two tries to guess which key would open the deadbolt. Jean shoved the door open, prepared himself again. He pushed himself the last few steps, not bothering to close the door behind him, and dropped Eren unceremoniously in a heap onto his couch.

Jean, breath heaving from exertion, took a moment to sit down next to Eren, whose feet were dangling over the side of the couch, and who, after a brief grunt upon impact with the couch, had fallen readily back to sleep. Jean watched him until his breath and heart slowed back to an even pace. Then, Jean got up. He untied Eren’s left shoe and peeled it off, setting it quietly on the floor by the entryway. He did the same with Eren’s right shoe. Even if he could have picked up Eren again, which he doubted, he didn’t know which room was Eren’s, so Jean grabbed a throw pillow and pulled Eren’s body further up the couch to meet it. Eren’s knees curled in to meet his chest, and his eyebrows furrowed together in his sleep. Jean carefully pulled the blanket out from under Eren and arranged the blanket over him. He evaluated his work, took a moment to appreciate Eren’s barely-parted lips, and set down Eren’s keys on the coffee table. He locked the doorknob and went back to his car, desperately hoping he wasn’t feeling what he thought he was.

The next morning, he woke up an hour late to a message from Eren, which said only “ _Thanks._ ”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! i love to hear what you guys think :)


	4. Chapter 4

The fourth time Jean offered Eren a ride home, it was a test.

After driving Eren home that Friday, Jean had spent the rest of the weekend without a moment of stillness. He went on at least five walks around the neighborhood, and challenged his roommate, Marco to a more than necessary amount of Just Dance matches, which Jean was horrible at to begin with but even worse in his current frenetic state. And in those few moments where Jean was forced to sit, his leg jiggled and his fingers tapped and his bottom lip was worried at by his teeth.

Despite his inability to still himself, he forced himself to do his homework early on Sunday evening. His class with Eren, their 19th Century Lit class, was Jean’s only Monday class, and he wanted to be plenty prepared for it. He did all of the assigned reading for the first time since the quarter had begun, and even highlighted a few passages. He would be as well-prepared as he possibly could for that class, because he wasn’t planning on paying attention to the class at all.

He was planning on evaluating Eren.

His encounter with Eren on Friday had left him with a number of feelings, all of which were easily identifiable, and most of which were just as easily deniable. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to like Eren. They got in fights whenever they were together for longer than fifteen minutes. Eren was an idealist, Jean was more of a realist. Both of them were equally hot-headed. Jean could not rationalize, then, why on earth he was even considering being interested in Eren. It was a horrible idea. The worst idea.

Jean set his alarm 15 minutes early so he would have time to make his hair look nice.

Jean awoke, groggily checked his email on his phone like usual, and then suddenly groaned with more force than he was usually capable of mustering that early in the morning. The cause of his distress was a short, one sentence long email from his professor which said she would not be able to come to class today and to please have the readings done for Tuesday’s class.

Jean flipped over onto his back and threw his arm over his face, breathing into it heavily for a while. Maybe it was just a sign from God that he wasn’t supposed to pursue Eren.

Jean’s phone vibrated loudly against his cheap mattress. He took his arm off of his face and reached over to pick up his phone again, thumbing across the screen to unlock it.

_Eren Jaeger 8:17 am_

_did u hear that mcgann cancelled class today_

Jean stared at the message for a while, fingers hovering over the touchscreen, before he typed back.

_Just saw._

Jean squinted at his screen before he pressed send and flipped over on the bed, nestling the left side of his face into his pillow. Before he could stop himself, he added,

_I think I might walk around downtown instead, now that my day is free. What about you?_

He closed his eyes and blindly tapped in the general area of the send button. He held the phone tight in both hands, parallel to his eyes so he would see the moment that Eren started texting him back. No more than a minute later, the typing bubble popped up, then a buzz against Jean’s fingertips.

_i have class right after mcgann but i think im gonna skip it. i dont really have plans._

“I don’t really have plans?” Jean read it out loud, then thought to himself that surely that was Eren’s way of saying he was free this afternoon.

Jean thumbed over his keyboard, pondering on what to say, when the typing bubble popped up again. He held his breath. A few seconds later, the bubble disappeared. Jean waited for a message to arrive in his inbox, but nothing happened. Jean sighed and started typing out a message, but the second he started typing, Eren’s bubble popped back up again. Jean tapped at the backspace with more ferocity than was absolutely necessary and stared unblinkingly at his screen. Eren’s typing bubble disappeared again. Jean tossed the phone aside, flopped over onto his stomach and let out a loud groan into his pillow. His groan was interrupted by a quiet buzz.

Jean scrambled for the phone, which cartoonishly evaded his grip for several seconds. Finally, he balanced it between each of his hands and stared at the screen.

_u wanna hang out?_

Jean turned and smothered his smile into his pillow.

_I’ll pick you up?_

_sure. eta?_

Jean sat up and craned his neck over the side of his bed to look at himself in the mirror. His hair was edging the line between playfully tousled and a-little-too-uncaring. A shower first, then.

_9:30 sound good?_

Before Eren texted back in the affirmative, Jean was already out of bed and pulling a bath towel off of his closet shelf. Just as Jean was shucking off his shirt, his phone vibrated loudly against the hard bathroom counter, giving Jean a start. He pulled his shirt over his head and let it fall to the floor while he tapped at his phone

_sounds good robin hood_

What a categorically un-Eren thing to say. Jean stared at the odd text for a moment before he set his phone back on the counter and pulled down the waistband of his underwear. Another loud buzz.

_i dont know why i said that_

Jean smiled and tapped back a “ _Whatever, weirdo_ ” before moving towards the shower, hissing as his toes made contact with the cool tub. The shower itself was surprisingly quick and unfussy, but the extra ten minutes he spent with one hand against the tile wall and the other wrapped around himself set him back a little, time-wise, as necessary as it was.

Jean got ready all too quickly and then found himself sitting, stomach growling, on his couch with another 30 minutes until he would have to leave.

Marco, hair sleep-tousled and face marred with lines from laying on something the wrong way, yawned his way into the living room and stopped short at the sight of Jean bouncing his leg anxiously and staring at his phone.

“Expecting someone?” Marco asked. His words turned into another yawn at the end. He blinked his eyes back open when he stopped and smiled down at Jean.

“Actually I’m picking someone up.”

“No class?” Marco quirked up an eyebrow.

“Cancelled.”

“Nice.”

Marco dragged his feet into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and leaned over to search its contents for something breakfast-worthy.

“Anyone I know?”

“Hm?” Jean asked, distracted. He dragged his eyes off of his phone and looked back over at Marco in the kitchen.

“I asked who the person you’re picking up is.”

“Oh, uh,” Jean considered lying for a moment then immediately abandoned the idea – Marco was his best friend, he could tell when Jean was lying. “I’m gonna walk around downtown with Eren Jaeger.”

Marco pulled something out of the fridge and let it shut with a _thwump_.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” Marco hummed. “I always kind of thought you hated him.”

“I don’t hate him.” Jean paused briefly before continuing. “He’s an asshole, but I don’t hate him.”

“So you like him?”

“ I-“ Jean paused for a fraction of a second in his answer. Marco immediately burst into a toothy smile.

“Oh my god,” he singsonged, “You actually _like_ somebody.”

“Calm down, Marco,” Jean rolled his eyes and set his phone down on the arm of the sofa. “It’s nothing like that. It was his idea. I don’t even really want to hang out with him.”

Marco laughed. “I’ve known you for, like, seven years, Jean, I can tell when you’re lying.”

Right. Jean forgot.

“Okay, it’s still not what you think it is, though,” Jean defended himself weakly. Marco, orange juice in hand walked into the living room and sat next to him on the couch.

“Then what is it?” Marco asked.

That was the thing Jean liked most about Marco. He did joke and tease, but when it came down to moments like this, Marco was just genuinely interested in what Jean had to say, what Jean was thinking. And Marco usually understood his feelings pretty quickly, so Jean never had to explain it too thoroughly (which was a good thing, because Jean hated articulating his feelings).

“It’s… kind of a test run?” Jean supposed that was the simplest way to put it.

“You’re not sure if you like him or not, then.” Marco replied.

Jean shrugged and waved his hand around in a way that he hoped spoke for him.

“Right,” Marco replied, watching Jean’s hand. His eyes fell to the arm of the couch. “You have a text,” Marco said, voice coy as he pointed a finger towards the phone in question.

Jean, a being a pure restraint, did not scramble pathetically for the phone. If he did, Marco was the only one who saw, and he’d never tell anyone what he’d seen.

It was a good morning text from his mom. Jean pointedly did not look over at Marco, who was pointedly staring at him as Jean blushingly texted his mother back a “morning mom, love you too!” and set his phone face-down on the arm of the couch.

After a few minutes of silence and a few sips of orange juice, Marco got up again.

“Toast?” Marco offered as he entered the kitchen.

“Sure, thanks.”

Jean peeked at the time on his phone. Another 20 minutes until he had to leave?

The subsequent 20 minutes snailed along. His toast disappeared all too fast, and once it was gone, Jean had run out of things to do. He hated every second of it, but if he showed up early, Eren would think he was desperate or something, which Jean wasn’t, because Jean was completely relaxed about this whole situation.

More or less, Jean passed the time by pretending to be patient.

He stared at his clock for the full last minute until he knew it would be time to leave. The second the numbers on the face of his phone changed, Jean stood up, shoved his phone into his pocket, and borderline-jogged to the door, giving a quick wave to Marco, who was quietly cleaning the kitchen counter.

He very intentionally kept his speedometer trained to the speed limit, very carefully stopped completely at every stop sign, very judiciously allowed pedestrians to cross the full length of the road, sidewalk-to-sidewalk, before continuing on his way. This was partially because he was trying to convince himself that he had some semblance of control, and also partially because if Jean were pulled over, there would be no telling how delayed he would be in reaching his destination, and then Eren would think he was lazy, or didn’t care, or worse still that Jean had forgotten about their plans entirely. The thought alone had Jean’s throat going tight.

Jean slowed to a gentle stop on the road outside of Eren’s small apartment complex, putting the car into park before pulling his phone out of his back pocket to text Eren that he was there. As he pulled open the messenger app, there were three quick taps against Jean’s passenger side window. Jean’s head spun to the source of the noise with a previously unheard of ferocity, and Eren was there, leaning over so as to be eye level with Jean, one hand in his pocket and the other one still poised over the window. Jean blinked. Eren pointed down at the door lock.

“Still locked,” Eren shouted through the thin window, unaware that even to Jean he was being loud.

Jean, not breaking eye contact with Eren, ran his fingers over the various buttons against his door and pressed the unlock button once he felt it. Eren clicked open his door and fell ungracefully into his seat, settling himself a bit before buckling his seat and then closing his door. He turned back to Jean. His eyes narrowed.

“Are you okay?” Eren asked uncertainly.

“What? I’m fine.” Jean replied.

The skeptical look in Eren’s eye didn’t go away.

“You’re just staring at me, is all. Like, zoned-out staring. Full-on zombie.” Eren gave a little nervous laugh.

Jean blinked. His face immediately turned to stare down at his steering wheel while he blushed furiously.

“I- sorry!” Jean stammered through an excuse. “I was just, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night so I’m probably just, you know, tired.”

“If you’re tired, you don’t have to drive. We can just-“

“No!” Jean interrupted, too loud. He quickly adjusted his volume. “No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine. Just a long night. Stayed up so late doing the reading and now we don’t even have class! Figures, huh?”

Eren stared at him for a moment before giving a small smile and laughing.

“Yeah, makes me pretty glad that I forgot about the assignment,” Eren chuckled.

“How could you forget about having a lit assignment?” Jean asked, hoping his smile would make his flushed face a little less noticeable. “We have a reading due every time the class meets. We never _don’t_ have homework in that class.”

Eren laughed now. Jean let himself look at Eren one more time. Once was enough. He could tide himself over on that for now. Jean smiled back at the road in front of him, turned on his blinker, and slowly merged back onto the road.

Their drive continued much in the same way. One would make a joke, and regardless of whether or not it was funny in the slightest the other would give a little chuckle before replying. They went back and forth with this for a while.

Finally, once Eren had settled down from his own laughter, he pointed at the road ahead of them.

“We’re nearly there.”

Jean hadn’t even noticed, but Eren was right. One more stoplight and they’d probably have to start looking for parking. “Where did you want to go anyway?” Eren asked.

“I, uh, I hadn’t really been planning on going anywhere?” Jean replied, unsure. “I just like to get a coffee or a snack and just kind of walk around. Look through the windows of interesting shops.”

“Do you ever go inside?” Eren asked, doing that chuckle-even-though-it’s-not-technically-funny thing.

“Not usually. I don’t really need anything, you know? Just fun to-” Jean stopped and waved his hand back and forth. “Y’know. Dream about being rich.”

Eren shook his head and snorted.

“What?” Jean asked. Jean’s eyes went wide as he spotted a place to park and pulled into it carefully. He put the car in park and looked over at Eren, who was staring back at him, smiling.

“You don’t have to buy the clothes to try them on.”

Jean turned off the ignition and put his keys back into his pocket.

“What are you suggesting?”

Eren raised one eyebrow.

“Come on, Jean, let’s get you a macchiato and then we’ll talk.”

“I don’t drink macchiatos…” Jean mumbled to Eren, who had already vacated the car entirely and was waiting outside for him.

The café they ended up going was one Jean had considered going to many times, but was too unfamiliar with to be certain he’d be happy with it, and so he had never gone. Jean ordered a plain coffee just to spite Eren’s joking accusation that Jean was a macchiato-drinker. Eren ordered a drink so sugary and chocolatey that it probably wasn’t technically within the realm of coffee and far closer to dessert. Jean regretted his plain coffee the second the barista handed Eren’s drink over, and so he added an extra dash of sugar to his own to make himself feel better.

The coffee wasn’t all that bad.

When they stepped outside, Eren looked left, then right, then right into Jean’s eyes. Jean’s heart leapt sideways in his chest. He mentally scolded it.

“What places do you usually walk by?” Eren asked.

“I don’t know… all of them?” Jean shrugged.

Eren shoved his shoulder lightly.

“Come on. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know!” Jean insisted.

Eren gave a slight frown.

“Fine.” Eren pointed one index finger out towards on end of the sidewalk and his other hand to the opposite end. “Left or right?”

Jean looked left, then right, then right into Eren’s eyes.

“I don’t know. You pick.”

Eren’s expression was incredulous, bordering on pitying amazement.

“You are so bad at this,” Eren finally said, then dropped his hands, grabbing Jean’s arm with one of them and dragging Jean in a direction that, given the warm heat of Eren’s palm against his skin, Jean couldn’t really tell was left or right.

Jean could tell Eren was watching him, and Jean determinedly avoided his eye, staring at the unchanging window displays he had already seen a dozen-odd times. A headless, absurdly posed mannequin; a pair of shoes Jean was sure would never grace human feet; a far-too-expensive guitar that gleamed from every angle, regardless of where the sun was.

“There!” Eren finally said. Jean finally looked at him, and Eren was smiling, all of his teeth shining in a row. Jean noticed a crooked tooth on the lower left of Eren’s smile for the first time and wondered silently whether or not Eren had ever had braces.

“What is it?” Jean asked, shaking away his thoughts.

“You saw something you liked in this shop. Let’s go in and look at it.”

“What? No, no way. I can’t ever afford it, so why would I torture myself by looking at it?”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Eren sang, pushing the door open an inch. The bell rang.

“That phrase doesn’t apply to this situation even a little bit,” Jean said, hungrily eyeing the door’s open inch.

“Come inside!” Eren invited, holding out his hand to Jean as he propped the door open against his back.

Jean mumbled his automatic response in a low enough voice that he thought Eren wouldn’t hear it. The visible interior of the music shop was pulling him in. He steeled himself to enter.

“What?” Eren asked immediately, clearly having heard what Jean mumbled.

“I said,” Jean pushed past Eren and then turned back around to face him. He leaned in and whispered, “That’s what she said.”

“Wo-o-w…” Eren whispered in one long breath, and he followed Jean inside of the shop, letting the door fall shut behind him.

The two walked around a display of bass guitars for a minute or so, Eren occasionally reaching out to pluck a thick string and Jean determinedly avoiding touching anything. As Eren was reaching towards yet another bass, an employee came up to them.

“Anything I can help you guys find today?” She asked.

“Nope,” Eren answered before Jean, always nervous around shop employees, had the opportunity to let his mouth form a word. Eren threw her a charming smile. “Just looking.”

“Alright,” the worker smiled back, “let me know if you need anything. I’ll be over here.” She gestured towards the counter.

When she left, Eren caught Jean’s eye and nodded back toward a near-glistening display of electric guitars.

Jean followed reluctantly. He let out a quiet gasp when Eren, ever-daring, reached out and touched the one that was clearly the most expensive, experimentally plucked at a string, then grabbed it by the neck and pulled it up from its stand. Eren held it out towards Jean, and Jean actually looked away from the thing in reverence.

“Come on, just play it. You can’t give this thing a black eye. I’ll make sure there are no staplers around.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Come on!” Eren insisted, pushing the guitar towards Eren further. Its cool wooden surface grazed Jean’s hand, and Jean flinched and stepped back.

“I don’t even know how to play guitar. I just think they look nice. I would never actually buy it,” Jean admitted.

“Neither would I,” Eren replied simply, and then pulled the strap over his head.

Jean’s mouth fell open a bit and he looked around to make sure the shopkeep wasn’t watching. She was. He made eye contact with her as she fiddled with something on the wall behind the counter, and she smiled wide back at him. Behind Jean, Eren strummed out a chord. Jean whipped back around.

“You play guitar?”

“I mean,” Eren strummed out three chords by way of explanation. “I could never, like, be in a band, but Mikasa taught me a few chords.”

“Your sister?” Jean asked. He’d met Mikasa once or twice, but they weren’t really on the same social level. It had taken three people to convince Jean that a person as overall well-composed as her even knew who Eren was.

“Yeah. She’s good at, well, pretty much everything.” Eren played the opening chords to a pop song from a few years earlier. “It would probably be annoying if I didn’t love her so much.”

“You’re pretty good at stuff, too, though,” Jean gestured to the guitar in Eren’s hand, the back of his mind still in a panic that Eren would actually hold (and thereby risk breaking) a guitar worth a few more thousand dollars than Jean could even conceptualize.

Eren smiled mirthlessly and peeled the guitar off, setting it back down gently into its cradle (bringing Jean’s stress level down with it).

“Not exactly. But thanks, though.”

Jean wanted to reassure Eren that Mikasa’s accomplishments weren’t the same as Eren’s shortcomings, but wasn’t sure how he would verbalize it even if he had the confidence to.

“Alright,” Eren said, breaking their silence, wiping his hands against one another and grinning at Jean in earnest now. “Where to now?”

The rest of their trip continued in much the same way. Eren would drag a hesitant Jean into a store he somehow could tell that Jean wanted to go into, and they would look at and touch the expensive things they wouldn’t buy in a hundred years.

In a video game store, they smudged their fingerprints onto the glass protecting rare and valuable games, each pointing out the ones they liked most. Jean found out that Eren, as much as he hated math, loved logic and puzzle games.

In a kitchen supply shop, Jean quietly fawned over the large, overabundant knife sets and the green stand mixer even he couldn’t justify liking. Jean found out that Eren knew virtually nothing about cooking and was genuine in his insistence that freezer meals were “just as good, if not better.”

In an organic food store, Eren pulled Jean over to the bulk spices section and had Jean smell all of his favorites, then insisted Jean point out his own favorites so he could do the same. Jean found out that Eren preferred thicker, more robust spices.

Each place they went, Eren insisted Jean ought to try on that ridiculous jacket, and sit in that vibrating massager display chair, and test out the samples of ridiculously overpriced lotion. (They’re called testers for a reason, Eren had insisted while squirting a copious amount of hand lotion into his palm). By the end of the day, the majority of Jean’s anxiety about the whole thing had waned considerably – though he did still get palpitations at the sight of Eren lifting up anything worth more than a thousand dollars. Before either had quite realized it, it was the afternoon.

“I don’t think I’ve ever spent this long downtown before,” Jean said, looking back down the sidewalk at the doors of each store they’d gone into. “And I haven’t even bought anything.”

“Well,” Eren grinned, “I know what we can do next time we go downtown.”

Jean’s mind was echoing the words “next time, next time” so loudly that he entirely missed the implication that Eren might be interested in pressuring Jean into spending money he didn’t have. _Eren wanted to do this again_. Jean did not bother to restrain his smile this time, and doubted he could have if he’d wanted to. When the smile Eren returned to him was equally as genuine, Jean’s chest clenched involuntarily. His eyes, large and green and completely bruiseless were even more beautiful when he smiled like this.

“Where’d you park again?” Eren asked before he broke eye contact to search the street up and down for signs of Jean’s car. Jean took a steadying breath and turned, leading the way back to the car that was so unaccustomed to waiting for Jean so long. For the briefest moment, Jean almost wished it wouldn’t start, so he had some excuse to experience the morning one more time.

They finally found the car and clambered in, Jean concealing his mild disappointment when the car started normally. The radio was off and neither of them made a noise beyond steady, even breaths as Jean backed out of his spot and pulled back onto the road.

“Hm,” Eren hummed.

“What?” Jean asked.

“Well, it’s just, you drive a car this nice, I’d expect you to be willing to splurge on something.”

“It’s my dad’s car, actually.” Jean tried not to sound like that fact embarrassed him. “I have to give it back in the summer.

“That fact just made watching you drive this thing a hundred more times entertaining,” Eren replied.

Jean looked over at Eren, and it was his eyes, crinkled from his grin, that finally did Jean in. It hit him less like a punch and more like a nudge. It was the last little piece of the puzzle that Jean had required for him to finally cement the idea in his mind that he, Jean Kirschtein, liked Eren Jaeger. The realization was punctuated with a sharp intake of air from Jean, but, as far as Jean could tell, went otherwise unnoticed by Eren. The rest of their ride was made in silence, and when Eren thanked Jean for the ride and insisted he’d had a nice time this morning, all Jean could do was smile, nod, and let out a quiet _mm-hmm_.

When Eren turned to leave, Jean stared down in his lap, took as much air as he could into his lungs, and let it all out at once. His eyes closed and his lips twitched.

This was not a feeling he was accustomed to, and certainly not one he’d ever really pursued. Those last few minutes in the car had been an emotional bench press.

Jean had set up a plan for just such an occurrence as this; he had decided that, if he was certain by the end of their outing that he liked Eren, he would take him out for another drive sometime a few nights from now and, somewhere in the middle of a not-embarrassing song from his CD player, he would ask Eren out for an actual dinner. But now that the time had come, Jean’s mind was repelling the idea with an unforeseen strength. Jean had never been particularly good at confessing his feelings, let alone confronting them himself. Coming to the conclusion that he liked Eren was exhausting enough on its own. The thought of it was overwhelming him.

A knock on his window made Jean jump in his seat. Eren was outside, smiling and waving.

Jean rolled down the window.

“Jesus, you scared me,” Jean breathed, hand on his chest.

“Haha, yeah, sorry, I just-“

“Did you forget something?” Jean looked into the passenger’s seat, then twisted to look in the back seat.

“Yeah, actually,” Eren laughed. “I, uh- Would you want to go out to dinner sometime or something?”

Jean would never have believed it, and he would still refuse to believe it for weeks after the fact, but after a brief moment of wide-eyed silence, the first thing Jean said was:

“Oh, thank God.”

When Eren was finished laughing at Jean, and Jean was finished trying to explain why he was so relieved (which really only made Eren laugh more), the two of them began sorting out plans for their date (and the word alone was giving Jean palpitations).

“So, I can pick you up at seven-ish?”

“You don’t have to pick me up.” Eren said.

“Of course I do,” Jean snorted. “It’s a- a date.”

“No, I mean, _you_ don't have to pick _me_ up. _I_ could… y'know, pick _you_ up.”

Jean stared at Eren with a confused smile as he processed what Eren was saying. Then, in an instant, the smile was gone.

“You mean you’ve had a car this whole time?!” Jean shouted.

“It never came up!” Eren argued back.

“Oh, so the dozens of times I’ve given you a ride never brought to your mind the thought of your own perfectly good car?”

“You’ve only given me a ride, like, four times, asshole!”

“That’s what she said!” Jean shouted in exasperation.

Silence.

“Get out of the car,” Eren finally said.

“I- what?” Jean was taken off-guard by that. He didn’t actually want to fight Eren.

“Come on. Come over here.”

“Why?” Jean asked slowly.

The corner of Eren’s mouth twitched.

So it was safe, then.

Jean opened his car door carefully to the steady chorus of beeps, warning him that his keys were still in the ignition. He climbed out and stood, staring at Eren over the roof of the car. Eren rolled his eyes and nodded his head, gesturing for Jean to come to the other side of the car. Jean pushed out a sigh and let his feet fall dramatically heavily against the pavement as he made his way towards Eren.

“Close your eyes,” Eren instructed once Jean stood in front of him. Jean made a show of acting annoyed as he shut them gently.

Then, there was a gentle pressure of another set of lips against his. It felt much shorter than it probably was before the other mouth pulled away, but Jean had never felt quite so full, quite so satisfied with a moment of too-brief contact. It was a peck at the most, really, but it drove a single thought to the forefront of Jean’s mind as he opened his eyes, finding Eren’s bright green eyes staring back:

He couldn’t wait to get into Eren’s car.

 


End file.
